Vice President, AI Deployment & Strategy (France)

SaxeCap; France; On-site; EUR 180,000 - 240,000; Full time

Job summary

SaxeCap is expanding its AI transformation practice in France, seeking a VP of AI Deployment & Strategy to own end-to-end value creation across a PE portfolio. You will bridge technical execution and strategic insights, coordinating with engineers, data scientists, and private equity sponsors to deliver measurable EBITDA impact.

In France, you will lead collaboration with French sponsors and portfolio companies, translating SaxeCap's playbook to the local context while building

Qualifications

• 5–10 years of experience across two or more: private equity, AI/ML product management, strategy consulting (MBB), investment banking, or engineering.

Responsibilities

• Lead the end-to-end lifecycle of AI-driven value creation for the PE portfolio.
• Design transformation roadmaps and oversee production AI deployments by technical teams.
• Build relationships with sponsors and portfolio companies, coordinating with Deal timelines and underwriting.

Skills

Private equity

AI/ML product management

Strategy consulting

Investment banking

Engineering

Team leadership

Executive stakeholder management

Python

SQL

Education

Bachelors/Master's in CS/Engineering/Math

Tools

Python

SQL

Job description

SaxeCap is the premier AI transformation and investment platform in private equity. We pioneered the concept of buying out traditional businesses and transforming them with AI in 2018, and today we are the go-to AI transformation partner for 70+ PE firms globally, including 9 of the 10 largest by AUM as well as the world's leading sovereign wealth funds. We've transformed 200+ businesses across healthcare services, business services, financial services, software, consumer, and more, driving billions of dollars of enterprise value expansion along the way.

We operate at the intersection of three businesses: (1) a private equity investment arm, (2) an in-house AI transformation firm that designs and deploys bespoke GenAI, ML, and automation solutions, and (3) a suite of proprietary software products. Our team comes from places like Google, Palantir, Meta, Surge AI, Blackstone, TPG, Cerberus, Millennium, Balyasny, McKinsey, Bain, Oliver Wyman, MIT, Stanford, IIT, GSB, HBS, and Wharton. Our leadership includes early investors in OpenAI, Anthropic, Groq, SpaceX, Neuralink, Mercor, Lambda Labs, etc. But what makes our team exceptional isn't where they came from or what they've invested in, it's what they ship. We are builders.

With established teams across North America, South America, India, and the United Kingdom, we are now expanding across Asia and continental Europe. This role is our first hire in France, and you will be the foundation of the team we build there.

About the Role

We are hiring a Vice President, AI Deployment & Strategy to join our AI transformation team and build our presence in France and the surrounding francophone and Southern European markets, working alongside our UK team and with the sponsors and portfolio companies that make up one of Europe's most active private equity markets. This is not a traditional consulting or investment role. You will own the full lifecycle of AI-driven value creation across our PE partner portfolio, from first engagement with a sponsor, through deep technical and strategic analysis, to managing our engineers and data scientists as they build and deploy solutions that move EBITDA.

You will operate across a range of workstreams simultaneously: evaluating AI opportunities for PE sponsors under deal timelines, designing comprehensive transformation roadmaps for portfolio companies, managing technical teams through production AI deployments, supporting investment underwriting for SaxeCap's own PE vehicle, and leading business development with new partners. The common thread: you are the person who connects AI's technical potential to measurable business value, and you own the outcome end to end.

In France specifically, you will lead our work with French sponsors and the portfolio companies they own, and you will serve as a bridge into Benelux and Southern Europe. France has one of the deepest private equity ecosystems in Europe and a strong base of healthcare services, business services, and consumer businesses with real room for AI-driven improvement. You will translate SaxeCap's playbook into that context: earning the trust of French management teams and employee representatives, designing deployments that satisfy French and EU regulatory expectations from day one, and building the relationships that make a transformation stick. You will also help us recruit and develop the team that follows you.

About You

You are a hybrid: part technologist, part strategist, part operator. You are equally comfortable whiteboarding a model architecture with an ML engineer, presenting an AI transformation roadmap to a private equity partner, and pressure-testing an LBO model. You move fast, you think in structures, and you obsess over shipped outcomes rather than theoretical potential. Specifically:

• 5 to 10 years of experience spanning two or more of: private equity, AI/ML product management, strategy consulting (MBB or comparable preferred), investment banking, or engineering
• You have managed teams of 5+ people (engineers, data scientists, consultants, or analysts) and held them accountable to ambitious timelines
• You have managed executive and C-suite stakeholder relationships, ideally in a PE or PE-adjacent context
• You have real AI/ML fluency: you can discuss model architectures, data pipelines, and build-vs-buy trade‑offs with technical teams, not just at a buzzword level. Hands‑on experience with Python, SQL, and data science tools is expected. Experience shipping ML products, managing RLHF programs, or building GenAI solutions is a strong differentiator.
• You have experience quantifying enterprise value and EBITDA impact of technology or transformation initiatives; not just tracking KPIs, but tying technical outcomes to P&L
• You have product management instincts: understanding user pain points, scoping technical solutions, and managing the build through deployment
• You have operated in fast‑paced, ambiguous environments where the scope, stakeholders, and approach shift rapidly, and you thrive in that context rather than resist it
• You have business‑level fluency in French and English, and can present to a French executive committee and to a global sponsor's investment committee with equal credibility
• You understand how French companies make decisions in practice, including the role of the CSE (comité social et économique) and social dialogue, and how to bring those stakeholders along on a transformation
• You are familiar with the French and EU regulatory and data environment, including GDPR, CNIL guidance, and the EU AI Act, and can design AI deployments that are compliant by construction rather than retrofitted
• You are authorized to work in France or the EU, or are eligible for sponsorship
• Bachelor's and/or Master's degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related technical field from a top‑tier institution

What Sets the Best Candidates Apart

The people who excel at SaxeCap share a specific profile. They are not pure technologists and not pure dealmakers, they are the rare operators who can do both. The strongest signals we look for:

• Shipped AI, not just studied it. You have built or managed the build of AI/ML solutions that went to production and drove measurable business outcomes. "Led AI strategy" without specifics doesn't move the needle. "Shipped an ML model that reduced X by Y%, managing a team of Z engineers" does.
• PE-grade rigor under time pressure. You can form accurate conviction on an AI opportunity from limited information and present that conviction to a PE partner with confidence. If you've worked on a live deal, you know what this feels like.
• Builder DNA. You don't just recommend, you build. Side projects, open‑source contributions, 0-to-1 products, or intrapreneurial ventures all signal the instinct we're looking for.
• Structured synthesis at scale. You can process massive amounts of qualitative and quantitative information and distill it into a prioritized plan that senior executives can act on. This is the hardest skill to find and the one we value most.
• Fluency in both the boardroom and the atelier. French organizations value intellectual rigor and will expect you to argue the logic of a transformation, not just present its outputs. The people who excel here can hold that debate with a management team and then go sit with the engineers and make it real.

Compensation & Growth

SaxeCap offers highly competitive compensation, and you will work directly with our senior leadership from day one, with significant client exposure and rapid professional development. The team is lean by design, there are no layers between you and impact. As our first hire in France, you will have a direct hand in shaping how SaxeCap grows across France and continental Europe.